Oporto's old flat blocks are narrow,
colourful and only 3 or 4 storeys high, so would offer a
fascinatingly variegated panorama, if all were restored to
their original state. I'll check on this in 2033. Meanwhile, it's
hard to believe the state of decay of most of them, whether in the
city centre or outside it. As for the '1950s brutal' modern
buildings and the cheap, shoddy shop fronts, the least said the
better. Both are reminiscent of the Soviet Union. As as are
the streets named after dates and the squares named after The Republic
and Liberty. If not quite communist then certainly very
left-of-centre.
In
sharp contrast to urban decay is thriving Oporto's airport - very well
designed and very easy to reach. Unless you're leaving from the city
centre in a car. I venture to say that, in this case and without a
sat-nav, you'd never find your way out as there are no signs
whatsoever. To anywhere. Quite bewildering.
But back to the positives
- Oporto also has at least one magnificent café, The Majestic. Here
- as everywhere else in the city - you can hear yourself think and
your fellow drinkers/diners talk. Which was a pleasant interlude for
us, before we headed back to the cacophony of Spain.
Talking
of which . . . I'd tried to bone up on Portugal's newish toll road
system but, as in the past, gave up because of its stupid complexity.
The end result - as on previous visits - was that I did pay the tolls
on the A3 autopista but not on the road (A41) to and from the
airport. This is around 40 cents and is automatically deducted via
cameras on overhead gantries from a dispositivo you're
supposed to take the trouble (and significant cost) to buy ahead of
entry onto the tolls network and install on your dashboard. But, for
the 4th or 6th time, I didn't and so now run the risk of being
stopped and fined some huge amount for not paying around 3 euros.
Madness. Or desperation to generate revenue. Or both, of course.
Incidentally,
when did we stop calling it the fascia and start calling it -
US fashion - the dashboard?
So,
on to the fotos:-
There's
a marvellous bookshop in Oporto. You're not supposed to take fotos
but, being culturally Spanish, I took one and then apologised
profusely:-
And here's one of those squares named after something militaristic in tone. You can probably work out what. Calling it The Olive Field obviously didn't cut the nationalistic mustard:-
And here's an example of a building (art deco?) which has seen much better days but now looks like a dowager aunt with her make-up peeling off:-
Finally
. . . Here's another shameless plug for my younger daughter's 2nd
blog post.
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